Sherry Xie

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on the atlas — 8

highlights — 24

conquering the fear of being cringe is fully a rite of passage to living life on your own terms
Isabel⚡️ on X: "be cringe in 2023. your life will legit get better on every front this is not a joke" / X
When your self image remains strong independent of external perception, it becomes harder to inflate or deflate your experience based on things you cannot control.
self image - by Isabel - Mind Mine
The moral here is that even when you’re in love with someone and you feel reasonably good around them, if there are little signs that they don’t really want you to talk, and you know that you really NEED TO TALK? Then you’re pretty fucked.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
He may have been a champion listener for anyone else. I don’t know. But he did NOT WANT TO LISTEN TO ME TALK. He wanted me to shut up. It’s incredible how long it took me to wise up and figure that out.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
Here’s what happens when we talk to people who SAY they like talking about their feelings but in practice, actually fucking hate it and will turn on us like a pit bull if we try to make them do it: Things get ugly. Here’s what happens when we start sleeping with someone who really doesn’t want to talk to us all that much, and sure as FUCK doesn’t want to hear us go on and on and on about something, even when we think we’re actually sort of uncovering important, smart shit along the way: We feel like shit. Things don’t work out. They might work out for a while, but eventually, things fall apart…
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
What makes a person happy is knowing who they are and what they need to thrive. Even though sensitive, smart people often want to give themselves more homework instead, the truth is that nothing needs to be fixed. Sharp knives require champion listeners, most of which are also sharp knives. And if we’re not outspoken about what we want, we’ll never find each other and live our best lives together in some sturdy motherfucking drawer that’s built to support the weight of lots of pointy, heavy things that love being pointy and heavy together.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
Communication is hard to do well consistently—successful couples often need to create pre-planned systems or even partake in couples’ therapy to make sure it happens.
How to Pick Your Life Partner - Part 2 — Wait But Why
Natural chemistry. Interacting should be easy and natural, energy levels should be in the same vicinity, and you should feel on the same “wavelength” in general. When I’m with someone on a very different wavelength than I am, it doesn’t take long before the interaction becomes exhausting.
How to Pick Your Life Partner - Part 2 — Wait But Why
A Traffic Test-passing friendship entails: A great sense of humor click. No one wants to spend 50 years fake laughing. Fun. And the ability to extract fun out of unfun situations—airport delays, long drives, errands. Not surprisingly, studies suggest that the amount of fun a couple has is a strong predictor for their future.6 A respect for each other’s brains and way of thinking. A life partner doubles as a career/life therapist, and if you don’t respect the way someone thinks, you’re not going to want to tell them your thoughts on work each day, or on anything else interesting that pops into …
How to Pick Your Life Partner - Part 2 — Wait But Why
So many high-achieving people get trapped into obsessing about the external world and neglecting their internal world. When you’ve been suppressing things for so long, you can’t just decide to stop all at once. Learning to listen to yourself takes a long time. I used to think that I always had to justify everything to myself—that I needed to be completely rational. Then I slowly started to realize that my emotional reaction to any situation was often way more accurate than any of my thoughts. And it’s kind of annoying, because often my feelings are telling me things I don’t really want to hear…
not disappointing myself - by Ava - bookbear express
But now? I bask in gratitude
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
You aren’t just being compulsive and nuts, with all that fucking analysis and talk. People will make you think that you are a lunatic, thanks to the fact that they don’t have a taste for such heaviness and they are, in fact, AFRAID OF IT. SHARP KNIVES NEED TO KNOW THAT WANTING TO BE HEARD ISN’T A CRIME. If you want to truly be heard — and you’re not that relaxed about spending time with people who don’t like intensity or depth or long conversations about big important things — that doesn’t make you a pain in the fucking ass. That makes you a sharp fucking knife.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
The moral here is that even when you’re in love with someone and you feel reasonably good around them, if there are little signs that they don’t really want you to talk, and you know that you really NEED TO TALK? Then you’re pretty fucked.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
I had a boyfriend once who became distracted any time we were about to have a conversation. The music wasn’t quite right. It was time to make a second drink. The lighting was wrong. It was time to check something online. It was time to make a phone call. I spent LOTS of time sitting with a drink in my hand, watching him do anything in the world but talk to me. We’d even go out to a nice restaurant, and he’d get distracted by the waiter or the conversation at the next table. He always had a very clear reason for not listening, and when I pushed him to try harder, I was being massively insensiti…
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
And if the people around us DO listen to us? If we get really lucky and we find a champion fucking listener out there in the world? Flowers bloom. The sun shines in, bright and strong. Birds sing happy little birdy songs. And — THIS IS IMPORTANT — we really don’t ask for much more than that. That’s the paradox of the digressive talky needy woman (or man). Give us a champion listener, here and there, and we’re good. Warm, dry, comfortable, happy. We will shut up and get ‘er done and take care of people and cook big meals and bring joy to the world.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
If this is a suitable description of you, VGG, and of you, reader, then you need to know something (in case you don’t already know it): YOU NEED A CHAMPION LISTENER IN YOUR LIFE.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
And while it’s true that no one REALLY needs a knife that sharp, there we are, the sharpest fucking knives in the motherfucking drawer. I’m not saying we’re geniuses, ok? We’re just sharp sharp sharp and we want to cut and cut and cut until there’s nothing left to cut. We do shut up sometimes. Sometimes we’re downright quiet, and you can’t get us to talk even if you try. But every now and then, we want to bring up tough, tangled, difficult situations and memories and experiences, and we want to slice and dice that shit up and shine a light on this or that and dig deeper and wonder and ponder a…
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
And then there are smart women with lots to say who are also very sensitive and weird and analytical and incredibly talkative, who ALSO listen very closely. These women are often labeled “a little too intense.” We think way too much, and slice and dice everything under the sun like a Ginsu knife that’s been sharpened one too many times and is now capable of cutting a watermelon in half like it’s made of crepe paper.
'How Do I Make My Boyfriend Listen?'
But that compromise is rarely temporary. It seeps in. I said to A the other day: Years slide by and crumble and flatten into each other. If you compromise your values in a certain way for long enough, it becomes intimate to you. You might fall into repeating this pattern for the rest of your life.
keeping promises to myself - by Nix 🕊 - starting from nix
I noticed that when I make and keep promises to myself — even small things like focusing on health or pouring time into a creative project — I feel more whole, more settled, more trusting of my intuition and inclinations. When I ignore them, I feel increasingly alienated from my own mind. And every choice feels fraught with the anxiety and panic that I might be choosing wrong.
keeping promises to myself - by Nix 🕊 - starting from nix
Also, sharing this wonderful image about intimacy Annabelle sent me — I really liked this visual, tangentially related to this piece:
intimacy thresholds
I have this reoccurring thought: I am fully responsible for the intimacy I allow myself to have. I am responsible for the partner I choose, the conversations I initiate, the places I inhabit. Etc etc. It’s also up to me how much of myself to give. And it’s up to me to have the courage to be honest with myself. Posturing intimacy is different from actually experiencing it, and only I can know what my threshold is.
intimacy thresholds
Intimacy sounds like fable until you feel it. Then it comes into our lives, tears our expectations to shreds, creates space for surprise. Resisting the need to always know, reaching beyond the discomfort of uncertainty. When everything forges forward, I’m comforted knowing we can stay still. Listening to the soft rain outside.
intimacy thresholds
A lot of anguish comes from the misalignment of intimacy thresholds. Problems of togetherness come up when people don’t want the version or scale of closeness that you want. Either they want more (yearning) or they want less (distant). I think a good relationship is where you fundamentally understand the other person’s intimacy threshold. How much space do you need? How intertwined do you get? Do you share everything on your mind, do you curate it subconsciously before you hit send? Do you share pain or suffering, just as easily as gladness?
intimacy thresholds